


All Your Talk, All Your Bluster: In Defence of the Angel Who Loved Humanity

by sketchy-and-unformed (infectedsense)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x18, Character Study, Meta, meta fiction, repost from tumblr, supernatural season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infectedsense/pseuds/sketchy-and-unformed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>If you’re looking for a meta that references a lot of outside sources and talks a lot about cinematography and framing in a knowledgeable way, this is not that meta. But I would recommend that if you think Gadreel is pure evil, you should read this and open your heart.</i>
</p><p>~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~</p><p>This is a meta about Gadreel in episode 9x18, Meta Fiction, and why I think he did not kill anybody in this episode. It was written in between 9x18 and 9x19 airing. This is a repost from my Tumblr blog, sketchy-and-unformed</p><p>Rating is for language and references to canon violence and death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Your Talk, All Your Bluster: In Defence of the Angel Who Loved Humanity

I am bad at introductions.

This is a meta about Meta Fiction (ouch, my head). This is a meta about Gadreel the angel. An absolutely brilliant episode and an absolutely fascinating character, in my never humble opinion. What I want to do today is share with you all my incredibly sympathetic view of Gadreel, which I arrived at by close reading of his character throughout season nine, and hopefully convince you of its validity. I will then use that as a basis to tell you why it is not possible for everything that Meta Fiction tells us that Gadreel did in that episode to actually have happened, and I am going to use the text of Meta Fiction itself as well as dialogue from earlier episodes to support all of this. It’s going to be really fun! It also takes a really long time. But my writing gets better than this, don’t worry!

It would be remiss of me not to preface this meta with acknowledgement of Ratface’s opening speech [note: I will refer to Metatron as Ratface frequently throughout this meta. Get used to it now]. Everything about this episode is designed to make us question both the accuracy and the intent of the script, characterisation, acting, and direction. This episode can be seen as entirely Metatron’s story. He’s visible as narrator for parts of it, but at the end the entire episode is referred to as his ‘play’. Don’t forget about the title card either. Title cards that differ from the norm have often been used on SPN to signify that what we see next is not the world we normally see (Changing Channels, anyone?).

As such, I am now going to question EVERYTHING about Gadreel’s actions and characterisation, because it’s all deeply unreliable. But the main thing that I want to do is tell you all that I do not believe for one second that Gadreel actually killed anybody in this episode. Let me show you why.

Characters talk about Gadreel in this episode a lot, and that’s equally important to the times that the angel is onscreen himself. To start us off, Castiel finds a warehouse with a glowing symbol that is emitting the angelic tone painted on the wall (in blood?) and a whole lot of dead angels (broken wing shadows and all). An angel named Hannah says the following: _“the doors slammed shut and a strange angel arrived. He said he worked for the new God.[…] He made us an offer… join Metatron, fight for him, and those that did would one day be allowed to return to heaven.[…] I didn’t believe him, either. But he said he would take us home. Some angels joined him. My friends and I refused, and, uh…”_ *implies that they were all killed* Hannah also has one eye completely swollen shut from being beaten, and a lot of cuts and blood on that whole side of her face. Cas asks her what was the angel’s name right at the end of this scene, before we cut away to the Winchesters. It was Gadreel.

Ahem. Some things. Firstly, we have only ever seen Gadreel extremely reluctant to kill. I analysed Holy Terror and Road Trip pretty extensively, and Gadreel was really cut up about having to kill. His instant reaction when Metatron in 9x09 informs him that he will need to “neutralise” their enemies is to swallow, look incredibly emotional and falter, [“that…that is not who I am”](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909thatisnotwhoiam.png). When Metatron then tries to hand him the card with Kevin’s name on it, he just [looks miserably down at it](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909kevincard.png) and has to be urged to actually take it. I also noticed that in every episode that Gadreel is around a dead body, he stares at it with a kind of fascination. See 9x02 (when it’s [demons](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/902lookingatbodies.png)), 9x03 ([Cas](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/903lookingatbodies.png)), and 9x04 ([Charlie](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/904lookingatbodies.png)) for a lot of this. Death rattles him; he’s not comfortable around it. His face after he kills Kevin is [on the verge of tears](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909afterkillingkevin3.png) and he says “[I did what I had to](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909afterkillingkevin.png)”. In 9x10 when Ratface slides him a napkin with another person to kill, he is [furious ](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/910howmanymorelives.png)when he hisses “How many more lives do I have to take?” It would be hugely out of character of him to slaughter multiple warehouses full of angels – Sam finds more crime scenes online, implying that it’s around 50 dead angels, I would estimate.

We’ve never seen Gadreel use hand-to-hand combat efficiently in real life, either. I simply don’t believe he’s adept enough to slaughter twenty angels alone; in 9x01 he couldn’t beat one. He looked [dazed ](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/901dazedandconfused.png)during the fight and was generally awful at it. Oh, we’ve seen him stab people who weren’t expecting it or had no way to defend themselves…actually, just Thaddeus. Gadreel couldn’t kill angels in the same way he killed Kevin. It wouldn’t work. Point is, there are literally zero examples of times that Gadreel has fought effectively. The only physical fights we’ve seen him in were getting his ass kicked in 9x01, and inside Sam’s head in 9x10, which can’t truly be counted for the obvious reason that it happened _inside Sam’s head_. There is no evidence within the show to make me believe that he would be capable of ‘neutralising’ a whole room full of angels. Maybe he could catch one off guard, but the show is asking me to believe that _not one angel_ in that whole warehouse responded to this by attacking Gadreel.

Gadreel’s style of fighting that we’ve seen so far actually says a lot about his character. In 9x09 he uses his angelic powers to trap Dean against a pillar after killing Kevin; it’s not an act of violence, it’s an [act of _restraint_](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909actofrestraint.png). In 9x10 we see Gadreel attacking first Dean, then Crowley and Sam inside Sam’s head. In _all three cases_ he only uses force after _they attack him first_. In Dean’s case, which happens in ‘reality’, he uses his [angelic powers](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/910selfdefence.png) again to throw the man, also after reminding him that “I let you live”. So number one, he is a defensive fighter and absolutely not an attacking one, and second of all he has only resorted to physical violence (that we’ve seen onscreen) as an absolute last resort, or not at all. Looking back even more closely at 9x01, his first objective in fighting the angel is to _disarm_ him. And he doesn’t pick up the blade for himself; Dean does that. Gadreel doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. The washing of his hands in 9x10 after slitting Abner’s vessel’s throat is deeply symbolic of this. In that episode he’s also contrasted with Castiel, when Gadreel throws Dean across the room without touching him, then Castiel knocks Gadreel out _with his fist_. It’s a clear message that Castiel is at once more human and more of a fighter than Gadreel is. For these reasons, I don’t believe that Gadreel would beat and bloody a room full of angels. Hannah’s face is messed up when she talks to Castiel. We’ve never seen Gadreel rough anybody up just for the fun of it. Last time we saw him, in 9x10, having to kill people was _tormenting_ him.

So. Those are my physical reasons why I do not believe that Gadreel killed all of those angels. We will get more psychological reasons later.

I am going to add here that almost all of the above text was written today. Most of the rest of it was written yesterday. The above was me being cool, calm and rational. Hopefully I have won you over already with my irrefutable logic. Because this meta is going to get progressively more emotional and capslocky, and it’s a real mess by the end of it. I just wanted you to know that.

I need to talk about Hannah a little bit, and about Metatron and some of his extremely suspicious dialogue from later on. This is the kind of episode that I watched four times before I picked up on some of the subtleties I mention in this meta, and later scenes absolutely shed light on things that happen earlier.

Hannah. When she tells us her name, she mumbles, and Castiel mumbles when he says it back to her. My first time through this episode, I couldn't understand what either of them were saying. Why is this? For me personally, it’s a sign that we’re seeing a ‘first draft’ (something Metatron later says should never be published). It’s a sign that we are being led through this episode by an author, and one who is still messing with the script. Can I mention that our first shot of Hannah as a character is of her [attempting to stab](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/hannahbehindcastiel.png) Castiel in the back? Incredibly blatant foreshadowing, right there. Is it a coincidence that we first see her with a blade raised at Castiel’s back, and later she apparently joins him as an ally? Yeah. Not suspicious at all. Et tu, Brute?

This is what Metatron says about Hannah later, to Castiel: _“Hannah and her sisters… **I set all that up** , told Gadreel, ‘slaughter all those who will not join my army, but let one live, one…To tell the tale.’”_  [emphasis mine.] This is where I have to expand on my theory, mentioned in the intro to this meta, that this whole entire episode is Metatron’s fanfiction, not only the scenes with Gabriel and Castiel. There is a lot of very strong textual evidence for this, and some subtextual as well (Metatron tells us that both can give a story meaning, at the start). I have already mentioned the title card. It’s not just a device that frames the Gabriel part of the story, which Metatron explicitly tells us was his fiction, it prefaces _the entire episode_. That’s my textual hint one. Next, all of the other shots of Metatron typing. Right at the end, he’s typing up what Castiel is doing as we’re watching him do it. This can easily be taken as evidence that Metatron is now omnipotent and knows everything, but I don’t read it that way. I think it’s telling us that everything we saw was Metatron’s work. Textual hint two. Then, at the end of the episode, Gadreel’s line is “How did your play turn out?” before asking “Was the Winchesters grabbing me part of your plan?” And Metatron goes on to exposition the following: _“That was a surprise. But, hey, what writer doesn’t love a good twist? My job is to set up interesting characters and see where they lead me. The by-product of having well-drawn characters is…They may surprise you. But I know something they don’t know…the ending. How I get there doesn’t matter as long as everybody plays their part.”_ So Gadreel refers to the entire episode as Ratface’s ‘play’, and by way of his dialogue, Ratface acknowledges that not only Gabriel, but Sam and Dean were _also_ his characters, because apparently, they surprised him. He refers to himself as a writer in the context of talking about Sam and Dean. Strongly implying that he wrote _all of it_. Textual hint three.

Hey, note the clue of the title of this episode. As well as being an apt description of a postmodern writing technique that Robbie Thompson uses here, it’s also a wicked play on words. Meta = Metatron. Metatron’s Fiction. That’s it. That’s the episode. We can’t trust any of it.

There is a really clever shot later on that I did not notice the significance of until my third time watching [honestly I think this episode was so tightly written and directed. I don’t write 7,000 words about just any episode. Including everything that isn’t in this meta, I wrote more about this episode than I did for my _dissertation_ ]. It happens later on, when the scenes are cutting between the Winchesters and Gadreel in the warehouse, and Metatron and Castiel in his study. Just after Sam punched Gadreel and Dean gave him a stern talking to, Dean drags Sam away, out of the scene. As he does this, Gadreel drops his head and his face is [completely hidden](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918ithoughtidtellyoualittlestory.png) in shadows. Over this shot of Gadreel lowering his face into darkness, we hear Ratface in voice over saying “Tonight, I thought I’d tell you a little story.” Again: this dialogue is layered over a shot of Gadreel, and it’s a shot in which his identity is _deliberately covered with shadows_. If that is not a blatant hint about Gadreel in this episode then I don’t know what a hint is and I should be killed, preferably gangland style. I will tell you later that a lot of Gadreel’s actions are told to us and not shown, that it’s bad storytelling, that a lot of what we’re supposedly seeing Gadreel do has nothing to do with any characterisation of him we’ve seen before this episode. Thanks, Metatron, for basically confirming that I am totally right to think all of that. Metatron is TEXTUALLY telling us a story ABOUT GADREEL. NOT SUBTEXT. TEXT. A STORY. MEANING IT’S NOT REAL. THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT. Still not convinced? The next half of that sentence is “and let you decide” as Metatron literally [points at the camera](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918andletyoudecide.png). This whole entire episode is about Gadreel. It’s in the text. You think that particular piece of directing and transition was an accident or coincidence or meaningless? Let me learn you a thing. This whole episode is asking us to make up our own mind about Gadreel, to ‘decide’. Hey, guess the last time that Metatron emphasised the word ‘decide’? _He was talking to Gadreel in 9x09_. As Gadreel had to decide Metatron or Winchesters, we now have to decide if we think Gadreel is the cold-blooded mass murderer he’s written as in Meta Fiction, or if we judge him to be capable of redemption. No prizes for guessing which side I came down on. Seriously. Notice how if you search Gadreel on Tumblr, there are two types of posts: the ones that are like this meta (Gadreel apologists) and those that hate him for tormenting the boys and only see his murders. The show has totally polarised us on purpose, dude. They want this character to be complex and with multiple interpretations. It’s so fucking clever and compelling I want to kiss them.

Going back to Metatron’s “Hannah and her sisters” line, which I bolded part of on purpose. First of all, I think it’s implied that Metatron named her Hannah just so he could make that quip. He loves referencing stories so much, it’s exactly the kind of thing he would do. He goes on to say “I set all that up”. So here is a list of reasons that I think that Metatron, and probably Hannah, are actually behind all of the angel killings. For starters, how does Metatron know Hannah’s name? He JUST SAID he told Gadreel to “let one live”, not let fucking _Hannah_ live, right? For me, there are two possible scenarios here. Either Hannah was genuinely a good angel caught in the crossfire, and after the slaughter Metatron grabbed her by the hair and whispered, ‘here is what you are going to tell Castiel. If you don’t tell him that Gadreel did this, I will know, and I will find you and end you’. So forced her to lie, basically. Of course the other option is that Hannah is working for Metatron and actually helped him kill the other angels before Metatron roughed her up a little to convince Castiel. I’m leaning towards this, because why wouldn’t Metatron want a spy in Castiel’s army? I’m telling you. Gadreel didn’t do that shit. This fuckface did. Don’t try and explain this away like ‘well Gadreel must have told Metatron her name’ because I will hit you with more questions: why would she tell Gadreel her name, if he didn’t know it already? Which I don’t think he would because he [didn’t even recognise Metatron](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/909doesntrecognisemetatron.png) in 9x09 – dude was locked up for millennia. He missed a lot. Even under duress (read: torture), to me personally it still makes more sense if she’s working for Metatron. Plus you know this show likes plot twists, and betrayal, and also introducing characters like five episodes before the finale then having them turn out to be evil (see also: FUCKING METATRON). So that’s what I think of that.

Another tiny point: Hannah tells Castiel the name of the angel, then he tells the Winchesters, and then, finally, Sam tells the audience. Not only do we not witness Gadreel murdering the angels, we’re given his name as the culprit _third hand_.

Still with me? I’m not done. Because not only do I not believe that Gadreel killed the angels (and I’m actually not even done talking about it), I also don’t believe he killed the Jesus lookalike shop owner. And the implication that he did actually makes me really angry for a lot of reasons. If you’re not ready to be screamed at in all caps some more, stop reading now.

So let’s go to that scene now. Here is the dialogue that prefaces it:

DEAN  
Didn’t we work a case in Ogden?  
SAM  
Yeah. It was a… it was a witch situation, right?  
DEAN  
Yeah. There was that kid in town that helped us, wasn’t there?  
SAM  
Yes. We should call him, see if he’s still in business.  
DEAN  
Yeah. What was his name?

I’m including that for a reason. Later on, after Gadreel visits the shop, Sam and Dean pull up outside and we see for the first time that it’s called [Ian’s Herbal Remedies](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918iansherbalremedies.png). This is another HUGE reason that I don’t trust ANY FUCKING THING in this episode. The Winchesters had a really out of place conversation earlier about some ‘kid’ that helped them on a case, but couldn’t remember his name. We never, at any point, hear the Jesus looking longhaired shop worker called by his name. Gadreel calls him ‘young man’. Dean earlier called him a ‘kid’. On the name of the shop it says Ian, but I think it’s a huge fucking red flag that is reminding us not to trust circumstantial evidence. Have any of you ever seen 12 Angry Men? Because everything about this reminds me of that. The entire fandom thinks the guy’s name was Ian, just decides it? IT’S NEVER MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPT. If I go work in Amy’s Cupcake Shop, is my name now Amy? It’s likely that the man was Ian, I’ll admit, but it’s by no means certain. This was Robbie Thompson being an amazing little shit, I am convinced. Saying ‘a ha, you all assumed his name was Ian, didn’t you? Guess what, it isn’t! So if you were wrong about that, what else is wrong with this picture?’ I’m actually really tempted to tweet him about this, that’s how sure I am. If anyone braver than I am wants to ask him if the guy’s name was actually Ian, please do. But don’t tell me if he says yes. My heart couldn’t handle it.

Now, into the scene proper. I went through this watching Gadreel’s facial expressions, body language and tone of voice very closely. Tahmoh is a great actor and he can portray calmly menacing in his sleep if he wants to. In fact, we see this quality in Gadreel later on in this very episode, when he’s alone with Dean. If Gadreel wanted to imply that he’s planning on murdering ‘Ian’, he really easily could do so, is what I’m saying. But what I’m telling you is that _he doesn’t_.

I will quickly skip past the fact that Gadreel’s car is like [a clone](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918gadreelscar.png) of the Impala, the fact that, like I said, we don’t see the sign saying Ian’s until _later_ , and how Gadreel is intentionally framed and shot to suggest evil as he enters the scene (we aren’t shown his face until after he starts to speak) but that this is deliberately contrasted with the way he _actually_ behaves towards ‘Ian’. With hood up, he pauses for a long beat (classic Gadreel) before he approaches the counter, behind which is a long-haired man with his back to Gadreel, and a shit load of bongs. Implied drug use adds more weight to the ‘don’t trust everything you see’ message, too. People see some fucked up shit under the influence of drugs. Mhmm.

“Good afternoon,” says Gadreel, perfectly cordially.

Long-hair replies without turning: “It’s afternoon?” Lol, what a stoner, right? He looks out the window in disbelief.

Gadreel continues: “I wonder if I may procure from you the feathers of a Griffin.”

Just read that. Read how fucking polite it is. That will be important in a minute. It’s not said with any hint of ill intentions, either. But it’s oddly formal and bizarre enough to make long-hair turn slowly.

Gadreel’s next line, after slowly removing his hood, is “I saw the Hunter signs on the door, young man. You have what I seek.” (What Hunter signs? Do we ever see them?) Seriously though, he’s being perfectly reasonable and polite. His tone is mellow and his face is relaxed and open. Dude genuinely just wants his Griffin feathers. I firmly believe that. No hint of a threat. Long-hair goes along with him now, because this strange, softly-spoken man is obviously a hunter himself. Notice how the shop keeper is not at all intimidated by Gadreel at any point during this scene. He thinks he’s sort of crazy, but he’s not at all afraid of him, and not only is Gadreel acting pretty strangely but he’s also 6’3” tall. If he wanted to be intimidating he damn well could be. This is all very different to inside Sam’s head in 9x10 when he stepped closer to Crowley, [leaned down](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/910youshouldberunning.png) and told him, “you should be running”.

‘Ian’ walks to the other end of the counter, while Gadreel takes a few moments to look around him at the wares on display before following slowly through the shop. As he walks and glances around, he sighs, “Humans never cease to amaze me.”, which elicits a confused “Excuse me?” from longhair, who has picked up a plastic box from the floor and placed it on the counter. Gadreel quickly cuts back in with, “I’m curious… do you also have fairy bones? It does not matter what realm they were from.”

Longhair is laughing. “Griffins and fairies… the hell you hunting, man?”

Gadreel smiles. It’s a [gentle](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/910youshouldberunning.png) smile. “Family."

They say that only 7% of communication is done through your actual words, but 55% is body language and 33% is tone of voice. Gadreel just said he is _hunting his family_. If his body language and tone matched up to those words, ‘Ian’ would pull out a shot gun. But he’s more than happy to turn his back to Gadreel and crouch down, leaving himself vulnerable to attack. Just make note of that. He’s puzzled by the words, but he doesn’t feel threatened by Gadreel even in the slightest.

“Mm-kay. Let me see what we have here.” ‘Ian’ crouches to retrieve another box, and-

The scene cuts SO ABRUPTLY. In any other episode, I would call this bad directing. It’s such an obvious unnatural cut. The far more natural place to cut would be right after the word ‘family’, wouldn’t it? The only reason I can see for showing ‘Ian’ crouching down is if his corpse was later found in that spot. It isn’t.

So let me break this scene down.

Honestly, I feel like if this same exact scene played out in any other episode and it was Castiel and not Gadreel, it would be a comedy scene and nothing more. There is NO HINT OF VIOLENCE IN ANYTHING THAT GADREEL SAYS OR DOES. Also, it’s all in the way that Gadreel holds himself. After removing his hood he literally does not raise his arms from his side once, not even for a second. His body is so tightly controlled. I just can’t imagine that he would suddenly kill this guy and stuff him in a closet? We have NEVER seen Gadreel defile a body like that. The way the guy is hung on the inside of the door, it’s like a taunt or a joke. Gadreel can’t stand killing, and there is literally no reason for him to kill this guy.

It’s in his word choices; “humans never cease to **amaze** me”. Not ‘infuriate’. It’s a little sarcastic, and the dude is acting like he’s stoned and is kind of annoying and kind of laughing at Gadreel, but all that you see from Gadreel is one eye roll moment and a whole lot of patience and sincerity. He really doesn’t come across like as soon as the camera cuts away to the next scene he’s going to leap over the counter and kill the guy. Why would he do that?

From a practical standpoint, murder makes zero sense, here. ‘Ian’ is giving Gadreel all the ingredients he needs. Why would he leave a trail of bodies? It makes no sense on any tactical level. If Sam and Dean find the shop, the fact that he’s dead with his eyes burned out is SO MUCH MORE OF A GIVEAWAY than if they just asked him ‘have you sold any Griffin feathers today?’ and he told them. Like seriously, think about it. Him being dead gives Gadreel a tactical advantage IN NO WAY AT ALL. Dead or alive the Winchesters know he’s been there, and what reason would he have to leave a corpse behind and make himself look like more of a villain? No. No way. This was Metatron’s work. I guarantee you that if we saw the rest of the scene, longhair would sell Gadreel his damn feathers and bones, Gadreel would say ‘I thank you most kindly’ and leave while longhair chucked to himself. Then later in the day Metatron would show up and say ‘sorry, but I have to make him look like the bad guy, here’ and kill him. TRUST ME. IF THE SHOW DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THAT GADREEL DIDN’T KILL THIS GUY I WILL BE SO PISSED OFF.

Why cut the scene that abruptly? They could have shown light exploding from outside if they wanted us to know Gadreel killed him. Why would Gadreel draw attention to himself by murdering someone in an open store with glass windows in broad daylight? WHY?? We have literally NEVER seen Gadreel kill for the sake of killing. EVER. IT IS NOT SOMETHING HE DOES. In 9x09 when Metatron told him he’d have to kill people, he got emotional and stammered ‘that...that is not who I am’. After he killed Kevin he almost fucking cried. If anyone can give me a good reason why the hell Gadreel would kill this man, I will give you ten dollars. It doesn’t serve his needs, and it’s out of character. The show presents us with Gadreel in the shop, and later shows us that the guy was killed by an angel, and knows that we will put two and two together. If this was a courthouse I would throw that case out right now for lack of evidence. It’s 100% circumstantial. Honestly, you could not convict Gadreel for that murder. There is way too much reasonable doubt.

A small detail: when Sam and Dean find the body later on, there is a box of Griffin feathers conveniently lying open on the floor. When we last saw Gadreel, the box of feathers was on the counter (‘Ian’ got those out first, right?). But Gadreel knocked/threw them back on the floor, why? The counter isn’t smashed and nothing else seems out of place, but it’s like the feathers are left clearly visible so that the Winchesters instantly connect the feathers to Gadreel. Again I go back to why would Gadreel kill him and leave this much evidence that he did it?? (It’s my favourite song.)

I also would like to address his comment that he is hunting ‘family’. This scene for me ties into my unwillingness to accept Gadreel’s role in that earlier scene of dead angels. He looks so content when he says ‘family’. And it’s HUGELY IMPORTANT to remember his words of 9x10: “I’m going to lead my kind back to Heaven. I’m going to be a hero”. Notice how he does _not_ say 'I'm going to slaughter any angel who will not join us'? THAT IS FUCKING IMPORTANT. THAT IS CRUCIAL. He was sceptical about whether he made the right choice to work with Ratface when he had to kill _one_ person. He barely even enjoyed killing his old torturer. Metatron made him kill his best friend, Abner, for no other Goddamn reason than to prove his loyalty, when he’d already killed twice and given him the angel tablet, and Gadreel was seriously pissed at being given a third name. He does not want to be a killer. He has never wanted to be a killer. You cannot convince me that he would kill dozens of his brothers and sisters in cold blood. That was never part of his deal with Metatron. Also go listen to his first words in 9x01: “This young man has prayed for our assistance. Are we creatures of wrath, or of compassion? I would argue the latter”. HE’S BEEN TORTURED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS BY ANGELS AND HE STILL BELIEVES THIS. Look at his face when the other angel holds up his hands. He looks [so compassionate](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/901creatureofcompassion.png) it’s beautiful. He wants to see the good in his brothers, even after millennia of torture. If the show hasn’t convinced you that he was not lying about this, he’s the most emotional angel we’ve ever seen and he hates death, then idk what show you’ve been watching. Even killing his torturer Thaddeus in 9x10, you can ask yourself if he still would have done it if Thaddeus hadn’t been so Goddamn _proud_ of himself for what he did to Abner (and later on Gadreel tells Abner that by killing Thaddeus, “I got **our** revenge”). Gadreel straight up does not just kill people without reason or simply for his own benefit, okay?

Gadreel only started killing when Metatron forced him to, and Meta Fiction goes ridiculously out of its way to _not_ show us him killing all the angels and the guy in the shop. We didn’t get one lousy shot that implied it. It was the opposite of good storytelling 101: we were told and not shown. And as for the angels specifically, like I said, Gadreel wants to lead them home. As weak-willed as he is, he would not kill that many times for Metatron, when Metatron never said that was part of the plan. And there’s a strong hint about what Gadreel might have really wanted to do with the siren’s song: fake!Gabriel says “But Metatron was using it to trap angels, not unite them.” So its purpose is to unite angels. Which ABSOLUTELY sounds like something Gadreel would want to do.

So here’s how I think it went down: Gadreel honestly thinks he’s bringing his brothers and sisters together. He paints the symbol, and angels gather. Maybe some of them realise who he is and try to kill him, I don’t know. But either way, Gadreel just wants for all of them to get back to Heaven. He literally defined this as his cause in 9x10. He gathers them together and gives his speech about joining together, and says he can lead them home. They all agree, because duh. He literally did not say what Hannah earlier quoted him as saying, namely: “join Metatron, fight for him, and those that did would one day be allowed to return to heaven.” You know why he didn’t say that? THAT WASN’T EVER THE FUCKING DEAL HE HAD WITH METATRON. If Metatron had said to him from the outset, ‘we’re gonna do a lot of fighting, a lot of killing, and maybe one day, we’ll get the angels back to Heaven’, THERE IS NO WAY GADREEL WOULD HAVE JOINED HIM. But Gadreel is way too trusting. I think he went into the warehouse full of love and hope and happiness, and he left with a song in his heart. As soon as he was out the door, Metatron showed up and went, ‘meh, I don’t want any of you angels in my Heaven’, and killed them all. Firstly, because Metatron is an evil fucker. Second, because it serves his story. Because he wants to make Gadreel the bad guy to his hero, and because he wants to give the surviving angels a reason to fight against him. No one would fight if there were no stakes.

All of this also suggests that Metatron is lying out his ass to Gadreel, which I am more than willing to believe for a bunch of reasons. Remember how Metatron tricked Castiel in season 8 by lying about his intentions? That’s reason one. Metatron loves to tell stories, that’s reason two. Reason three is that the end of this episode gives us reason to believe that not only does Metatron not give a shit about Gadreel, but also that Gadreel does not even have access to Metatron. It’s a small detail, but bear with me; right at the end, Gadreel enters Ratface’s study for a chat. But a female angel has to [open the doors](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918whodisbitch.png) for him and show him in. To me, this just implies that Gadreel has to book an appointment to even speak to Metatron, or even that the female angel potentially outranks Gadreel. Put it this way, does any of Gadreel’s treatment by Metatron suggest that he is the trusted second in command angel? Nope. If Metatron doesn’t care if he gets beaten up (but does care enough to save him when he is, that’s also important), it seems obvious that he would keep information from him as well. Also also, ‘as long as everyone plays their part’ as a direct response to Gadreel asking ‘was the Winchesters grabbing me part of your plan?’ If this doesn’t say that Gadreel is a pawn to Metatron, I don’t know what to tell you. You know who would not make a good pawn? A TERRIFYING EVIL ANGEL WHO CAN SLAUGHTER A ROOM FULL OF OTHER ANGELS SINGLE HANDED AND KILLS SHOPKEEPERS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT JUST FOR KICKS. Go and watch every movie ever and imagine you’re the bad guy, who do you want on your payroll, fucking scary killer guy or good-hearted, trusting guy who will believe anything you tell him? Metatron is manipulating Gadreel because Metatron is manipulating everyone. Okay? *deep breath* Okay.

I covered most of this earlier, but when the Winchesters visit Ian’s, Dean notices the sign still says ‘open’ even though it’s night. So if, IF Gadreel killed ‘Ian’, it was during trading hours. IS WHAT IS IMPLIED. Again, why risk it? If he wanted him dead that badly, why not come back at night? And Gadreel really is not the type to kill impulsively, we’ve never seen him kill anyone he wasn’t explicitly told to. Dean says, as his torch shines on the object in question, “Got an open box of feathers over here.” Thanks, captain obvious. Again, this is suspicious to me because I feel like in past episodes, there would be no dialogue for this. Dean’s torch would highlight the box and the viewer would see it and put things together. It’s like this episode is spoon-feeding us when they normally let us do some of the work on our own, and it smells fishy to me. Sam opens up a closet and reveals ‘Ian’ hung from a nail inside the door with his eyes burned out. So Dean says, “We gotta find Gadreel”. Our last ‘hint’ as to who did this. I will concede that ‘Ian’ is wearing the exact same outfit he was when Gadreel spoke to him, but that also doesn’t prove that Gadreel killed him. I just do not trust this shit at all. See above.

Just, lastly, we literally get an entire act after Gadreel’s scene in the herbal shop that we are explicitly told afterwards did not really happen because Metatron made it all up. We see him typing it while Castiel is passed out. The whole episode is referred to as a play, and something we actually saw did not really happen. And you’re seriously going to accept without question that Gadreel killed like fifty angels and the shop owner OFFSCREEN? We can't even trust what's ONSCREEN.

I’m just gonna note here that the last line of dialogue we hear before our next scene of Gadreel is fake!Gabriel saying “Remember the minions of Metatron I mentioned?”. Minions. I think the association is deliberate. Minions is not a word you associate with highly trusted high ranking second in command positions, as we’re being lead to believe Gadreel is. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this dialogue precedes a shot of Gadreel. He’s still ‘Gadreel the sap’, ‘the original chump’, ‘Heaven’s longest running joke’. Metatron is playing him like a fiddle, and if you don’t think that means that Gadreel is not doing half the shit we’re being told he’s doing, then I feel for you.

I am seriously almost done, but really quickly I am going to look at Gadreel’s characterisation in the rest of the episode and show why it supports everything I’ve argued so far. I’m going to float a couple of headcanons as well [my original notes for this are sprinkled with uses of ‘FUCK HEADCANON ALERT’; it’s fabulous]. Here are my theories on Gadreel running into Sam in the alleyway where he gets captured. We don’t know why Gadreel or the Winchesters happen to meet there. The brothers are not good enough at tracking to have just found Gadreel. They don’t even know what car he drives so how could they have traced it? But we saw earlier that Sam pulled up photos of the angel slaughter crime scenes, and gave us locations of them. It absolutely makes sense for them to be at one of those crime scenes, investigating and hoping to catch Gadreel. And for his part, why is Gadreel there? It’s definitely not a _current_ crime scene. If it was, Sam and Dean would be investigating it properly and we’d see some corpses, or some sign of the siren song. We don’t get any of these things, we just see Gadreel walking down some stairs. This is my headcanon: Gadreel smelt a rat and went back to the site of one of his angel sirens, and found all of the corpses Metatron and Hannah left there. That would firstly explain why he’s so bent on death afterwards, and also give Sam and Dean a reason for being there.

The second part is about why Gadreel is stalking Sam and why we walks out with a blade in his hand and a smile on his face, because I’ve already told you that I don’t for a second believe that violence is in Gadreel’s nature, so here it is: Gadreel never planned to use the blade on Sam. HE WANTED SAM TO USE IT ON HIM. Seriously. Gadreel knows Dean can kill angels. He saw it in 9x01, where he also saw that Dean has access to and knows how to use holy oil [wasn’t it supposed to be super rare, though? RETCON]. He also knows, if he learned nothing else, that Dean is so ridiculously overprotective of Sam there’s no way he would let him go strolling around a dark alleyway without being at least within screaming distance. Gadreel has to know this is a trap. I refuse to believe he’s that stupid. He tries to goad Dean into killing him in like ten minutes time. You telling me that came out of nowhere? He’s [not gonna kill](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918nothowulookatsomeoneurabouttokill.png) Sam. He wants Sam to kill him, because he thinks he deserves to die, and he thinks Sam deserves to be the one to put the knife in his heart. [I AM SO FUCKING GOOD AT META, GUYS.]

Gadreel is not stupid enough to stroll out like that with a soft smile on his face if he’s trying to attack. I do believe, however, that he is suicidal enough to do that. The look on Gadreel’s face when he sees Sam, it’s [mostly dread](http://i980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/infectedsense/All%20Your%20Talk%20All%20Your%20Bluster/918gadreelseessam.png). It’s not in any way ‘yes I want to kill that guy so fucking hard’. Sam literally never did anything to hurt Gadreel. He just expelled him, which he had every right to do. Gadreel knows he tricked him into saying yes, and that wasn’t exactly kosher. Also, remember how happy Sam was at the end of 9x02? It’s his speech about being happier than he’s been in a long time: _“I realise it’s crazy out there, and we have trouble coming for us, but I look around and I see friends, and family. I am happy with my life, for the first time in… forever.”_ Gadreel did that. WHY would he spend months healing Sam, body AND soul, just to kill him now? Like I said, if Gadreel seems ridiculously OOC in this episode, I am blaming Metatron. When Gadreel steps out with his angel blade, he walks so fucking slowly. Notice how he always does this? Maybe a remnant of being caged for so long that he literally didn’t walk anywhere for thousands of years. But honestly. Villains on Supernatural don’t stalk their victims then step out all slow and give them plenty of time to run or attack, especially if it’s a fucking Winchester. Reminder: Gadreel is well aware of how dangerous these two are. The last time he saw them, they caught him, bound him into a chair, had a demon stick needles in his brain and then had that demon possess him. And that was while he was inside Dean’s brother. What the fuck does he think they’re gonna do to him in another vessel? Make him dinner? The other reason I know Gadreel never intends on killing Sam is based on dialogue from 9x10: “Even bound, I can tear this body apart,” he says. He never even comes close to following through on this threat. Notice how in 9x10 he calls Crowley out by saying “for all your chatter you will always be a coward,” then here in 9x18 he calls Dean on “all your talk, all your bluster” before going on a bit later to call him a coward? It’s very telling that Gadreel sees chatter as a front for cowardice, considering it’s a tool he himself used here.

Gadreel and Dean’s scene is very interesting. Gadreel’s behaviour at the end of the episode with Metatron is also interesting. But I actually don’t even need to talk about those scenes. I’ve given more than enough solid evidence to support my claims that Meta Fiction as a whole is a work of fiction, and we are urged to find the faults with how Gadreel in particular is written, and this is supported by an awful lot of hints and reasons to believe that Gadreel didn’t actually kill anybody during the course of the episode.

Peace out, we’re done here.

I’m equally as bad at conclusions.

[Does anybody actually believe that I have a degree in English Literature with Creative Writing? Personally I’m starting to question it.]


End file.
